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Wednesday, February 11, 2015

We have YA on tap this Wednesday with the Collide tour. The Taking series by Melissa West is a fantastic series. I've read book one, Gravity, (loved it!) and started the second, Hover. There's so much to enjoy from complex characters to the great action and world building. Oh, and there's romance and scary beings too! Please enjoy reading the excerpt, author interview and enter the giveaway. Happy Hump Day!

Collide (The
Taking #3)

by Melissa West

Release Date:
02/09/15

Entangled Teen

320 pages

Summary from
Goodreads:

Military legacy
Ari Alexander has survived alien spies, WWIV, and a changing world order. But
when the new leader of Earth uses Jackson—the only boy she's ever let herself
care about—to get to her, Ari has no choice but to surrender.

To free Jackson,
she agrees to travel to the national bases to train others to fight. What she
discovers is a land riddled with dying people. Ari has the power to heal by
turning the fighters into aliens—half-breeds like her. If she succeeds,
together, they have a chance at overthrowing the alien leader, Zeus. But if she
fails, everyone she holds dear will be wiped away forever.

Once again,
everything Ari’s come to believe is thrown into question. In a world of
uncertainty, loyalties are tested, lies are uncovered, and no one can be
trusted. If Ari and Jackson have any hope at survival and at preserving a life
for the future, they must fight the final war with their eyes wide open.

I walk down
the dirt road and stare off into the distance, my mind on the impending war,
when my eye catches on something beside the road. A half mile away, but
absolutely there. I edge closer, another step, then another, my heartbeat
picking up. The wind slowly slips around me, throwing my hair in my face as I
strain to see.

The figure
moves toward me, and I toward it, then I see long white hair whip in the wind
and suddenly my blood stops pumping, my legs stop moving, my lungs stop drawing
breath. But still, he continues to move. I scramble back, falling, digging into
the dirt, desperate to get away. I have no weapon, nothing. I’m not prepared. I
can’t fight him. Not here. Not now. And then in a blink of the eye, he’s in
front of me and every muscle in my body quakes with fear. A slow smile creeps
across Zeus’s face, and then one word is placed in my mind as though it were my
thought instead of his.

Soon.

“Ah!” I gasp
for a breath that won’t come and scramble up, only to find myself tangled in
blankets. I fight against them, just as Jackson pulls me against him.
“Jackson?” I blink hard, momentarily disoriented. “How did I get back here?
Where is he? Did you see him?”

I try to
stand, but Jackson forces me to sit still. “Ari, it was just a dream. You had a
dream.”

“No. You
weren’t in here. I was alone and then I went outside and—”

“You didn’t.
I came in shortly after we all went to bed. I couldn’t sleep without you. And
I’m sorry about earlier.”

My mind
reels, unable to stop. “Wait, no, you weren’t here, and I left. I went outside.
I—”

“Why don’t I
get you some water? Stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.”

He steps
outside the makeshift curtain, and I sit back in my bed, my hands shaking. I
clench them together in hopes of steadying them, and that’s when my gaze lands
on my fingers, on the thick red mud caked underneath each nail. I hold them out
in front of me, fighting to keep a sob from escaping my lips.

It wasn’t a
dream. Zeus is here.

Interview

Where did you get
the idea of the Ancients?

A combination of my interest – and fear – of
aliens and a storm. I was watching the beginning of a storm from my back deck
and noticed the trees all moving in that easy rhythm they do just before a bad
thunderstorm. Something raced through one of the trees – likely a squirrel –
but in that moment it looked as though the tree itself was moving, like a
creature was trying to come out of the tree. And so the Ancients of GRAVITY
were born. :)

Who is your
favorite character?

I’ve been asked this question a lot and the character tends to change
for me, but I have to say for the series as a whole, my favorite is Ari. There
are so many strong female leads out there, but I wanted Ari to not only be
tough, but caring and flawed. I wanted her greatest strength to be her greatest
weakness and for her to battle that constantly. She’s sensitive, she cries, and
she isn’t ashamed of those tears. I just adore her.

What is your
favorite line in COLLIDE?

It’s very rare for me to like the last line of one of my books. Far too
often, I find the last line cheesy or frustrating, which is why I’m such a fan
of the cliffhanger. Ha! But with COLLIDE, I love the final line. It so
perfectly sums up my intentions of the series, which at root are very much a
look at humanity and the way we view those who are different from us.

Melissa West writes young adult and new adult novels
for Entangled Teen and Embrace and Penguin/InterMix. She lives outside of
Atlanta, GA with her husband and two daughters and spends most of her time
writing, reading, or fueling her coffee addiction.

She holds a B.A. in Communication Studies and a M.S. in Graphic Communication,
both from Clemson University. Yeah, her blood runs orange.